722 



APPENDIX I APPENDIX I 



facilities — the Lawrence Livermore and Oak Ridge National Labora- 

 tories, the Princeton University Plasma Physics Laboratory, and 

 the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Plasma Fusion Center. 

 To understand private industry's role, we interviewed officials 

 from Westinghouse, Inc.; Union Carbide; and GA Technologies, Inc. 



In addition, we reviewed relevant documentation, including 

 congressional testimony, international cooperation agreements, 

 data on personnel exchanges, and material prepared for a 1981 

 National Science Foundation workshop on international cooperation 

 in fusion energy development. 



Japan, the European Community, and the Soviet Union are the 

 other countries with major fusion programs. The United States 

 participates in cooperative efforts with each of them, as well as 

 with Switzerland, Canada, and China, Personnel exchanges also 

 occur with several other countries. We met with representatives 

 from the Japanese Embassy and the Delegation of the Commission of 

 the European Communities to obtain their views on international 

 cooperative efforts in fusion research and development (R&D). 



We conducted our review between May and September 1983 in 

 accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 



OVERVIEW OF THE U.S. MAGNETIC 

 CONFINEMENT FUSION^ PROGRAM 



The United States, through DOE and its predecessor agencies— 

 the Energy Research and Development Administration and the Atomic 

 Energy Commission — has spent over $3.5 billion on fusion R&D 

 efforts from fiscal year 1950 through fiscal year 1983. DOE'S 

 Office of Fusion Energy currently funds and directs the nation's 

 fusion energy program. It also coordinates the R&D efforts of 

 several national laboratories, some industrial participants, and 



2Fusion energy is a from of nuclear energy that results when atoms 

 of light chemical elements that have been heated and confined 

 combine to form heavier elements and, in the process, release 

 energy. It is, in effect, the opposite of nuclear fission, which 

 powers today's reactors. During fission, atoms of heavy chemical 

 elements are split, releasing energy. Currently, there are two 

 major approaches to developing fusion energy: magnetic confine- 

 ment and inertial confinement. Magnetic confinement, the main 

 approach being explored for commercial energy generation, in- 

 volves the confinement of fusion fuel in magnetic fields, where 

 it is heated to the extreme temperature needed to initiate a 

 fusion reaction. Inertial confinement uses lasers and particle 

 beams to initiate a fusion reaction. This report only addresses 

 the magnetic confinement fusion program. Another DOE program is 

 investigating inertial confinement, primarily for its military 

 applications . 



